We only eat with our feet here..

After a couple of days in Zanzibar, sleeping on Ian's exceptionally comfortable and gracious couch, its time to move on. I have eaten well, and slept much. Joseph, Ian's housemate, an Indian fellow, makes the most incredible curries, every day. When I say incredible, I mean, each bite redefines your understanding of the experience of tastiness for a few moments, as you fill your bek and nourish your soul with this manna from the Orient.

So to get to mainland Tanzania in a dhow is apparently illegal for mzungu's. You're expected to take the hugely expensive ferry to Dar es Salaam, which everyone says is a huge, rotting open sewer with traffic. So fuck that, I plan to hop on a dhow and sail away over the warm, tropical ocean, trailing my fishing line over the side and grinning smugly to myself, while the police hop up and down on their hats in the distance, shouting and waving in impotent rage.

Its never quite as one expects. I end up jumping on a speed boat and racing up to a dhow, mid ocean, and jumping across. Mission Impossible style, but also the budget. But I'm free! Off Zanzibar, where I spent three quarters of my budget for three months, in a week.

So I make it to my final destination. Aurora Farm, Pangani, Tanzania. My palm frond banda is on stilts, beside a huge cashew tree. I throw down my backpack and have a scratch around. The kitchen is beautiful, with a fireplace, gas stove and wood burning oven. No fridge, unfortunately, but we're working on that. The whole camp is nestled under the cooling shade of cashew trees, which come alive at night with bats, spiders, bush babies, birds and all sorts of lively little creatures, some noisier than others. Several plots of land are being planted and fertilised, and there are already fields of maize baking under the tropical sun, ready to harvest, if the heat doesnt pop the kernels like popcorn.

Further down the road is our beach. A small bay flanked by mangroves, with sheer cliffs on either side and a large, pointy rock in the middle, it has a certain piratical air to it. An enormous baobab tree stands majestically on the beach, exactly where I would bury my treasure, were I so inclined.

If you take a short walk up the road you can find our local village. Three huts and a two shops, where you can buy such essentials as airtime (sometimes), cooldrinks, water and, well, that's about it, really. TIA, as they say: This is Africa, and it really is. The walk to the village passes a few maize and sweet potato fields, some coconut palms and acacia's, a couple of mud and thatch huts, some goats and maybe a cow. Pretty remarkable, in its simplicity. Life here goes on much as it did 50 years ago, if not 200 years ago.